Compartment 14B

I mentioned recently that Grommet is always changing. This is a source of happiness and wonder, and, surprisingly, a little bit of sadness.

For instance, she used to love having her little head rubbed, and now she no longer seems to even notice when I do it, she’s too busy looking around at the world. I miss being able to bliss her out that way, watching her little eyes roll back in her head and her mouth fall open and arms slowly slide, boneless to my lap.

“When you were a baby,” I say sadly, “you loved this!”

Her hatred of the change table has reversed itself. Where she used to wail and stick out her lower lip while being changed, she now breaks into a grin most times she’s even laid down on the change table.

“When you were a baby,” I say delightedly, “you hated this!”

I think she now associates it with good things, like Mom (that’s me!) bicycling her legs and getting troublesome gas out of her, and clean, dry nether regions. She also is more likely to coo conversationally at me during a diaper change than at any other time. This back-and-forth of noise is another new development that only really started about a week and a half ago and it is captivating and adorable.

Her hair doesn’t seem to get much longer but her fingernails are growing like crazy.

She’s maintaining the pooping pattern I mentioned in the last entry and only poops every 3-4 days these days. The tradeoff for this is that, when she does evacuate, her diaper is full of the stinkiest poop we’ve smelled from her so far, and it’s a weird, smooth, almost paste-like consistency. It looks like someone has dumped half a cup of grey poupon (pun not intended) mustard in her diaper. That might not sound like much but this stuff spreads and we have to be on top of changing her immediately or we risk a leak of this toxic stuff. And sticky? You only have to wave something in the general direction of her behind and it’s coated with the stuff. Peeyew!

Even with the nuclear poop, I wouldn’t trade these days for anything. There is no better way to spend my time than watching my daughter smile and having an “Ahhh?” “Ahhh!” conversation with her.